Life After Life
by SisterofTurin
Summary: What can you do, when your life has ended for the third time? Are you prepared to find out?
1. Prologue: The third time

**Prologue**

What can you do, when your life has ended for the third time?

First, with a downpour of too thick, too dark, bone-encased blood, clinging and sticking to his throat, oozing across and across and into his whole body and he was drowning he couldn't breathe he needed air -

* * *

Who would have known that it would be even worse the second time? He wife's voice, whispering, barely trembling, for oh, she was so brave. ' _Do it now._ ' The words metamorphosed into groans, then screams, until he finally realised that the awful, anguished cry, reverberating through the coombs below the abbey, it was his.

He would rather face her screams than never hear her voice again. His wife, Mirena.

But how selfish he was, how egotistical, wishing agony on his heart's soul. Mirena was in a far better place, one that he would never reach.

He knew that he was focussing on the sounds, on her fingers clasping, digging into his arm, to avoid the remembrance of the fangs against his lips, and that sweet, sweet blood trickling through his lips, distracting him, surrounding him, overwhelming him…

He did not expect to awaken the third time. But perhaps awaken is the wrong word to use for one who would never sleep again. Any ability to sleep had soared away from him with his wife and the final dregs of his hope for humanity.

Sleep no more. Ha! He had murdered everything but sleep.

* * *

A drop - blood upon his lips. Dissolving into them. Another. And then another. Small splashes. He heard his own breath. Deep. Heavy. Laboured.

The sound grew less distinct. Now he could hear the wind, the tent awnings flapping.

Eyes wide open. The gypsy was standing over him. It felt like beetles were scuttling over every inch of his skin. ' _Drink, master._ ' And he did. How could something so foul taste so fair?

Blood soaking down the stake of an impaled man. The body's fruitless final writhing only increased the speed. Blood flowing down. Soaking into the wood.

Men, lying on the ground, thousands of them around him. Each one with blood staining their armour, their skin, even the dark ground. A broken skull, a poor imitation of a goblet with its broken, jagged rims, and the opaque blood pooled against the white bone. Blood, and pain and death.

He had been a soldier. Every man knew that blood brought death.

Why did blood bring him to life?

It must be that he was death.


	2. Chapter 1: A thud and rising dust

**A thud and rising dust**

The awnings were flapping, a red kite cried from high above, wind blew across his shaded face. Everything was calm and still and he breathed. The gypsy was leering over -

Instantly, Dracula was on his feet - ready to grab the gypsy and hoist him up.

There was a thud and he tasted dust and he found himself on the floor again.

The gypsy chuckled, slowly, in a way that could only be felt as menacingly.

'Do not exert yourself, master. You almost died, again.' For the second time, there was that chuckle.

'What did you do?' Vlad croaked. 'Why, I brought you back to life, master. You must be alive, or, at least, appear so, for my serving of you.'

'I am not your master.'

'Are you not the Voivode, the Prince, the master of all people in these lands of Wallachia and Transylvania? From the lowliest vagrant to your son himself?'

'Ingeras will be crowned Prince. I am dead. Let me die.'

'Will be crowned? Is crowned, rather. The coronation is taking place as we speak.'

'Liar. There is no way it could have been arranged so quickly.'

'How could you think so ill of me?' He tilted his head, and licked the inside his lips.

'You have been lying here for three days, my master. I carried your body away from the battlefield and scavengers, and laid it in this tented field post. Away from all the watchful eyes.

It is true. Your nine-year old shall rule the country, well, that is, if he even survives the ceremony.'

'My son is strong.'

'But even the strongest of men cannot resist a blade, or poison. Let alone a child…'

'Brother Lucian will take care of him.'

'A monk? What does a monk know of such matters as ruling a country? Better a monkey, that would even have a sense of self preservation and the wisdom not to spend its life worshiping a make-believe idol.'

'If Hell be real, then so be Heaven. This I am certain of.'

'But which is which, my master?'

There was a pause, as Vlad focused on regaining strength, trying to force himself up, but to no avail.

'You are surprisingly eloquent, for a gypsy. For all I knew, none of your race even spoke Church Slavonic.'

'Perhaps I am the only one, my master. Languages are one of my … areas of expertise. An area that will come in very useful to you, I think. After all, you cannot even speak Romanian.'

'How do you know all these details of me?'

'You said it yourself, my master, I have been following you.'

'I dare say I shall pick the peasants' tongue up. Besides, what need have I of it? I am fluent in Church Slavonic and Arabic.'

'You wish to pass the rest of eternity with nobles who would recognise you, or the race that murdered your people? What would Ingeras think of your living with those who killed his mother?'

Enraged, Vlad once more struggled to his feet, and failed to stay standing. Dust filled his eyes, and blinded him, his tear ducts having been burnt away by the Sun.

The gypsy took a swaggering step closer to him, that infernal smile still playing on his lips and his dreadlocks only serving to amplify every tiny, constant movement of his head.

'You say you wish to serve me, gypsy, yet all you seem to be doing is antagonising and mocking.'

'That is true, my master, pray, forgive me.' The gypsy bowed, and in doing so, a drop of blood fell from his hand into the ground beside the vampire, who had minutely watched it fall like it were sand in an hourglass.

'Oh, you like it? Well, there is much more where that came from, my master. Let me serve you. Some of my blood will restore you to strength, and my skills will aid you invaluably, whether you need my command of tongues, or my stealth, and ability to go, not unseen, but unnoticed. I have been following you yourself; from your crushing of the rocks in the riverbed, oh yes, I saw all that, to the massacre of the Turks. I could hear their screams from the mountainside. But, few have noticed me. Your people have long been adept at ignoring the Roma.'

'I wonder why, if they are all as pleasant as you are. And are you doing proposing to do all this for me out of the goodness of your own heart?'

'Surely, my master, as the Voivode you have experienced your fair share of people serving you, and yet professing no desire for reward?'

'You scarcely strike me as a sycophant, and I hardly think association with a supposedly dead 'demon' will aid your standing in court.'

'Not in court, no, my master, but perhaps I desire the fear and dread that your name brings with it. There is only so far on this earth we can run. Believe me, for I have tried, and it is not far enough.'

'Ah, now I see the crux of the matter. No gypsy travels alone. You have committed some heinous crime, and being pursued world-over for it, have flown to me in order that I can protect you.'

'There is no one stronger.'

'Ha! I would hardly call it strength. You have seen what sunlight produces me to.

Some linguist you would make, with every villager you meet baying for your blood.'

'Blood that would enable you to regain full strength in an instant and fly to protect your only son.'

Vlad raised himself onto his arms, noticing his hands as he did so. Blistered. Rotten. Without fingernails. He could only imagine how his face appeared.

'Very well, I accept your deal. You may become my thrall.'

'Yes, master.' The smile deepened further, and his eyes glinted. The fugitive took a step closer to Vlad, gripped the knife's handle, reaching his left hand down, brushing the blade. All of a sudden, he grabbed it, and there was blood, trickling down, handing at the underside of his hand for an unbearable second, before the shear weight it dragged it down and into the vampire's gaping mouth below.

Vlad was on his feet, no faltering or falling this time, grabbing the man by his shoulders and lifting him into the air. He brought their faces closer, and slowly licked his teeth with his tongue.

Vlad smiled, and opened his mouth fully, to say 'it is lucky for you that I am an honourable man. I will stick to our deal.'

The gypsy landed in the dust with a thump. Dust rose.

'You may serve me. All you must do is keep up.' A mirthless chuckle, and Vlad transformed into a cloud of bats, fleeting away in the direction of Castle Dracula.


End file.
